Brush with death affects Texan's Real World

TV FEATURE

MIKE McDANIEL, Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle TV Editor

Published 5:30 am, Monday, July 2, 2001

The Real World
becomes the surreal world when you become a member of the cast.

"I don't think anybody could forget this experience, no matter how short a memory you have," said Kevin Dunn, a 23-year-old from Austin who makes his bow on the MTV series tonight. "It's really just surreal, and one of those life experiences that changes you for the better, hopefully."

Dunn joins a cast that for the first time includes four minority members. The cast, who meet tonight at their million-dollar New York residence, includes:

Coral, 22, a San Francisco-area resident who has seen both sides of life, economically speaking. Her mother lives in government-subsidized housing, while her father's savings have been footing Coral's private-school education.

Nicole, a 22-year-old Atlanta resident, also has biracial parents. She recently graduated from Morris Brown University.

Rachel, 18, is a punk rock fan raised outside Chicago by her mother.

In tonight's premiere, racism becomes Topic A when painfully naive Mike outrageously claims that African-Americans are intellectually inferior. Malik and, especially, Coral can't believe their ears, setting up a tense situation as the series begins its 10th season.

A secondary story line (and what would Real World be without sexual issues?) involves Kevin and Lori, and whether they'll instantly become a couple or not.

But as Kevin explains on tonight's show (9 p.m., MTV), he's had 22 years of drama in his life. The Real World, for him, is all about fun. The idea of hooking up with someone isn't on his agenda.

"I'm extremely anti-drama," he said. "From my view, I just laugh stuff off. I was pretty much laughing at a lot of stuff that happened on the show instead of taking it seriously."

Kevin's disdain for drama has everything to do with testicular cancer, which he overcame 4 1/2 years ago, and his brush with death.

"Cancer has changed my perspective on life," he said. "When I was 18, I was probably your typical kid who didn't know what he was doing and was skating through life. Now I appreciate life a lot more."

"I wouldn't take back cancer for anything in the world," he said. "If I had to go through everything I went through, including the 4 1/2 months of chemo, I would do it in a second.

"I use it to keep my perspective. Any time I let petty issues get me down, I remember how much I was suffering and how close I was to not living. It makes getting up on Monday morning a lot easier. You appreciate being alive.

"My experience with cancer helped me going into the show and especially while I was going through it. I was able to not take the little things so hard."

A senior majoring in broadcast journalism and business at the University of Texas, Dunn worked as a high school sports reporter for Austin radio station KVET. His mom and dad live in Austin, and he has an older sister living in Dallas.

The Real World will run through November. At the time of this interview in late May, he had just wrapped shooting. The cast is encouraged not to dish out information about upcoming shows, and Dunn, for the most part, obliged.

"I think all three of us guys got along really well because we didn't let petty issues get in the way," he said. "We didn't have any arguments. We wanted to make this a fun, educational and entertaining trip, and we did.

"Throughout the show, at times there were people I didn't respect or want to deal with. I learned through the show that you have to learn how to talk with them if you're going to live with them."

Did he and the rest of the house get along?

"Yeah, I think so," he said. "Obviously there are parts of my personality that are going to wear on everybody. There were times when I didn't get along with the girls, but in the long run everything will work out with the show, and I really like the way the show progressed and the growth that everyone made."

Of course, what happened and how it's portrayed on screen can be two different things. In that way, Dunn will be experiencing the TV show just like the rest of the viewing audience.

"This is going to be hard on all of us, because stuff is going to air, and they can air whatever they want," he said. "If they air something that I think is in poor taste, that's just the way it is.

"That's how I am now. I don't take anything too big. I've had too much other stuff in my life to take something like this and get too serious about it."